Thumbs Up Really Means Bugger Off

[InSearchOfMartin]

Friend received this from a man she knows on Linked in, sent him a message and he replied, she sent him one back after a week and got an immediate thumbs up and nothing else. She said she's now blocking him. What do you say?

If the message was - shall we go to York or Harrogate then it's a naff reply

If the message was sorry not been in touch, busy at work then thumbs up is fine

He would be waiting for you to get in touch when you are not busy

I think if it takes you an entire week to respond to an acquaintance’s message, unless you apologise with the reasoning that you were trekking in the Amazon without any data signal, you have already yourself shown that you’re not particularly interested in that person or their messaging, and you can’t be surprised when they respond in kind.

There was a whole thread recently about what 👍🏻 actually means as an emoji, with about half of those responding thinking it just means acknowledging a message you don’t think requires any further chat, and others thinking it means anything from “fuck you” to being passive aggressive, so at any rate it’s probably best to just chat in real life if you want to be on the same page as somebody.

@ComtesseDeSpair do you have a link to that thread please? I've tried searching but searching is shite on the app.
I have someone who replies to my WhatsApp messages with a thumbs up and they've been a bit off lately so I read it to mean that they've read my message but aren't really interested. It makes me feel shut down. Previous replies were friendly and humorous when appropriate but now there's something definitely off. Not a romantic interest, just a distant family member of sorts.

He acknowledged the message but not interested in responding further, it is annoying to keep receiving messages on there to be fair, why would she block? you can't force business contacts to keep regularly messaging, is she trying to sell something or does she fancy him either way he's not that interested.

Linkedin isn't exactly a dating app, do surely it depends on the message. What did she say? Thumbs up to my generation is just an ok, acknowledgement type message, often used as the end of that particular conversation. It doesn't mean I'm never speaking again to that person!

I don't know what she said, didn't ask!

It isn't weird. What would be weird is if I went and asked other friends in real life rather than on an anonymous relationship board, which would be gossip. This friend has anxiety about relationships and leaving the house. She's not worked in a long time and is completely out of touch with social norms. It's a man she knew as a customer of the design place she worked for in the past. I didn't ask what the conversation was about because she didn't say. I wouldn't expect it to be inappropriate though but I think she was hoping for something to come from it.

What is this site for? And this is not AIBU to start being critical, aggressive and sarcastic. It's a relationship section. With lots of people on here asking questions about what does this or that mean in terms of communication it's a normal thing to do. For instance I've seen replies telling posters to use thumbs up for grey rocking type responses and thought it might be useful to have something to say to her about that when she brings it up again with me and to be able to advise her to let it lie or whatever I think she should do.

Is all that OK with you @TipsyPlumAnt or do you have something else to say that might be a bit more positive than your comment?

Update, I got a message this morning that the guy got back to her and suggested a meetup for coffee. He'd been working overseas for a week so the thumbs up was an acknowledgement like a PP said earlier. He had been working in Europe for a week.

This thread's a bit pointless then, isn't it? 😳

Got some decent answers, so no. And I don't have to go back and tell her I think the guy was giving her the brush off as it looks like he wasn't.